Author Cindy Ramsey got hugs Thursday from USS North Carolina veterans Roy Hightower, left, and Bob Fennelly during a luncheon talk by Ramsey on the state’s famous battleship.

Charlie Hall/Sun Journal

By Charlie Hall, Sun Journal Staff

Published: Friday, May 10, 2013 at 01:09 PM.

Writer Cindy Ramsey went looking for ghost stories about the state’s famous battleship, the USS North Carolina. Attending a reunion of World War II’s most decorated ship, she found something more profound — the crewmen.

The project on battleship ghost stories didn’t materialize for her although someone else wrote the story.

“I found something more important and meaningful,” she said. “I found the boys.”

The ship is a historical tourist fixture in Wilmington.

“She comes alive when her boys come home,” she said Thursday during a presentation at the New Bern Historical Society Lunch & Learn series.

Her program was titled “A North Carolina Icon Brought to Life: Sea Stories of Sailors Aboard the World War II Battleship North Carolina.”

The luncheon at The Chelsea featured two veterans living in New Bern who served on the North Carolina — Bob Fennelly and Roy Hightower.

Writer Cindy Ramsey went looking for ghost stories about the state’s famous battleship, the USS North Carolina. Attending a reunion of World War II’s most decorated ship, she found something more profound — the crewmen.

The project on battleship ghost stories didn’t materialize for her although someone else wrote the story.

“I found something more important and meaningful,” she said. “I found the boys.”

The ship is a historical tourist fixture in Wilmington.

“She comes alive when her boys come home,” she said Thursday during a presentation at the New Bern Historical Society Lunch & Learn series.

Her program was titled “A North Carolina Icon Brought to Life: Sea Stories of Sailors Aboard the World War II Battleship North Carolina.”

The luncheon at The Chelsea featured two veterans living in New Bern who served on the North Carolina — Bob Fennelly and Roy Hightower.

Fennelly, who spent more than 40 months on the ship, is among the veterans Ramsey interviewed for her book on the ship — “Boys of the Battleship North Carolina.”

Ramsey wears a Navy shirt to each of her talks about the battleship and the back features autographs of former crewmen she has met. On Thursday, Hightower added his name to her shirt.

“I was proud to have him sign it,” she said. “Sadly, more than half the names on it are no longer with us.”

That remark prefaced her overall theme of honoring the ship and all veterans.

The event also featured a number of other veterans in attendance, including 95-year-old Thomas Poole, a Pearl Harbor survivor; James Gilbert and Jack Glynn from the Navy; and Harry Goodman and Joe Bach from the Army.

It was also a significant event, the last one organized by volunteer June Dunleavy, who is stepping aside after seven years of heading the successful series.

Ramsey, who has been attending battleship reunions in Wilmington since 2000, gave an insightful talk and slide presentation on the ship and the stories of a number of its former crewmen, including Fennelly.

She presented group reunion photos that showed how drastically the numbers had dropped throughout recent years.

“Those numbers are diminishing and all too soon, they will all be gone,” she said to an audience of 99 guests. “The ship, as impressive as it was, was nothing without her crew.”

She traced the ship’s history, from its launching in June of 1940 as the battleship jewel of the Navy, called “The Showboat” by columnist Walter Winchell.

The ship went on to earn its stripes through attacks from the air and torpedoes, earning 15 battle stars through 50 campaigns in the South Pacific.

She told stories of some of the individuals, some humorous, some reflecting the realities of war.

Ramsey told how Fennelly, who served his time and returned to his hometown of Baltimore, never spoke of the war again until she interviewed him 50 years later.

She told of the North Carolina making its way into Pearl Harbor for the first time, just seven months after the attack that ignited the war with Japan. The crew on the shiny new battleship saw the hull of the USS Utah, gouged open and riddled with holes. It also passed the sunken USS Arizona and how the waves caused one of the portholes to clank open and shut, reminding New Jersey sailor Paul Weiser that his boyhood friend was buried inside.

She told of regular life on board the ship, a city unto itself, with everything from a post office and a hospital to an ice cream machine.

Sailor Lincoln Hector was the ship butcher and recalled ordering an allotment of 400 pounds of liver for the 2,000 crewmen. The liver arrived, all 4,000 pounds of it. In the book, he explains the difficulty of returning 3,600 pounds of government-issued liver during the war.

She told of men who gave up their civilian dreams in favor of patriotism, such as Bob Palomaris, a gifted California baseball player destined for the major leagues.

He was the only sailor in his division without a pinup girl poster in his locker. Betty Grable was the wartime favorite.

Sailor Joe Parker asked Palomaris who he would like for a pinup poster and he replied Shirley Temple.

Ironically, Parker knew the movie star and after the ship was forced to dry dock repairs for a month from a torpedo attack, Parker took Palomaris to meet his idol for lunch.

Once the ship was back in action, the mail arrived and Palomaris had his pinup — a signed photo from Temple.

Ramsey’s talk was sponsored by the New Bern Historical Society and the North Carolina Humanities Council.

Charlie Hall can be reached at 252-635-5667 or Charlie.hall@newbernsj.com.